Posted at 12:59 PM ET, 11/20/2013

Gift list: what does a person who “likes classical music” really like?

Tis the season to think of gifts. A couple of weeks ago, a friend asked me to put together a list of new CDs for another friend, a woman in her 30s whom I’ve never met who describes herself as “liking classical music,” and listens to it a lot -- and not to pop music -- on the radio.

What an easy task. I have literally hundreds of new CDs sitting on and around my desk (I wish this were an exaggeration), all of them falling under the rubric of “classical music.” It’s a trove of new releases of all descriptions, and it should make any classical-music lover’s mouth water.

But when I started to think about it, it got less easy. Because saying “I like classical music” can be (as I’ve said before) as much a sociological statement as an aesthetic one. The music you like is tied up with your identity, and the 30-year-old who says “I like classical music, and not pop/rock,” is signaling that she doesn’t run with the crowd. But what exactly is she saying? And what music would she actually like?